Another wave of Talibanization is striking different parts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, especially the tribal area of ex-FATA, Swat and Malakand division. People are out on the streets against this phenomenon and our state is trying to negotiate a peace deal under difficult internal and external circumstances. Will we find peace or is another war in the making?
Afghan Taliban took over Kabul in August last year. With their ascension to power, Pakistan hoped for easy days on the Northwest border with the assumption that Pakistan will not have to worry about the threat of Tehreek-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP) given its “favourable” ties with Afghan Taliban. However, things turned out differently and the illusion under which most of Pakistan, including some mainstream political parties and other state actors, celebrated Taliban’s ascent to power was destroyed by the events that followed.
Afghan Taliban and TTP are natural allies and thus they released all the TTP leaders and fighters imprisoned by the Ghani regime in Afghanistan. This gave Noor Wali Mehsud, the central leader of TTP, the opportunity to regroup and reorganize. In the later part of 2021, post the takeover of Kabul by Taliban, TTP increased their presence in Pakistan and started a new wave of terrorist attacks on the security forces and other strategic interests including China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). This worsening security situation compelled Pakistan, because of both internal and external factors, to negotiate with TTP.
Earlier this year, a round of talks was held with TTP in Afghanistan mediated by Afghan Taliban to reach a permanent peace agreement. Pakistan released key TTP commanders in May, 2022 following which Afghan Taliban announced permanent ceasefire between the two parties, while the talks for a long-lasting solution were still on-going and the key point of deadlock was, and still remains, the demand to reverse the merger of ex-FATA and to restore its previous constitutional standing. This is an interesting demand and neither TTP nor Islamabad is willing to concede on this demand.
Pakistan sent a delegation of clerics led by Mufti Taqi Usmani to hold a fresh round of talks. On their arrival to Kabul, TTP issued a statement which was more than a welcome and they took it as an opportunity to further their narrative: they denounced the state institutions and the current political system by terming them the remains of colonial legacy while drawing sovereignty from the same doctrine which laid the foundation of Pakistan: the construction of an Islamic state. They also outlined their justification for their demand to de-merge FATA by referring to the historical reference of the British recognizing tribal areas as independent under their own set of rules, and that the same was extended by Jinnah post-partition. A much more interesting point was drawing upon the strategic use of tribal areas: Tribal areas were used as a shelter during the soviet war and then the war against the United States in Afghanistan; Taliban regrouped there, established their camps, trained their members and this area provided for a safe passage. Our state used ex-FATA as a buffer zone for its policy of strategic depth in Afghanistan and Taliban are doing the same. An interesting phenomenon! As Shenila Khoja-Moolji illustrates in her book “Sovereign Attachments”, the militant groups draw sovereignty from the same factors that the state does, thus sovereignty is not purely a phenomenon limited to the state.
While the negotiations are on-going, there have been growing insurgency in the tribal area and that of Swat and Malakand division, areas that were previously hotbeds for Taliban insurgency and the military operations that followed. Mohsin Dawar, the elected member of Parliament from Waziristan, has for the past two years raised concerns over the growing presence of Taliban and target killing in the area. Now, it has spread to other area of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province and the most recent example is that of the attack on PTI MPA from lower Dir, Liaqat Malik, and security personnel being held hostage in the same area.
Following this attack, people in Dir and Swat have come out in large numbers to register their protest and denounce the militarization of the region, vying for peace to prevail with posters of resistance displaying “We want peace on our land” and “We want pen (Education and peace) not guns”. Similarly, a protest is going in Waziristan for over a month now with no coverage from the mainstream. People from these regions have suffered the consequences of war over the past two decades and they are now at the forefront of fighting this menace to save the coming generation from bearing the cost of it, but with little willingness from the state.
This is alarming as Pakistan cannot afford another war, and TTP knows that Islamabad is pushing for negotiations from a position of weakness. The precarious economic situation means that Pakistan does not have enough capital to finance another war against terror, especially now that the United States has withdrawn its forces from Afghanistan and Pakistan won’t have the coalition support fund at its disposal. In case Islamabad wages a war, it will not be without angering Afghan Taliban which are the patrons of TTP and thus Pakistan finds itself in a tight spot. Second, China is also pushing Pakistan for negotiations with the militant outfits because their attacks are hindering progress on the CPEC projects and China wants quick and smooth implementation of this project which is important to their development footprint in the region.
However, this won’t be easy now as an important TTP commander Omar Khalid Khorasani was killed in a blast on 7th of August in Kabul alongside three other commanders. This will definitely affect the peace talks as dark clouds looms over the cease-fire agreement now. A major transfer of a highly ranked military officer form Peshawar to Bahawalpur in the aftermath of this incident points to the same. What will the fate of these negotiations is yet to unfold. But even if an agreement is reached, how long will it last? The history isn’t very encouraging, as the agreements reached in the past didn’t last more than a month or two at best! We are at a continuous war, and we won’t find any new answers! But for how long will the people of tribal areas, Swat and Malakand division suffer? And who is to guarantee that this wave of militancy won’t spread to the rest of Pakistan?
